Are you anti-creativity? Chances are most of you immediately responded "No." Who in their right mind would be against something that is exciting, engaging and often leads to new ideas and unprecedented innovation? In this age of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, everyone seems to be reinventing themselves in the most clever ways possible. Yet, a recent Cornell University study published in Psychological Science found there is also a bias against creativity, one so subtle that most people are unaware that they have it. This is because creativity typically requires changing the status quo, causing uncertainty. And uncertainty is something that most people, especially science majors, are not completely comfortable with.
Since my childhood, I have demanded consistency and routine, needing to know what was coming up next and leaving little room for spontaneity.
This became clear during my undergraduate training when I could not understand majors that didn't seem to lead to a specific career goal. For example, the next steps in a history major's future upon graduation seemed too uncertain while being premed came with one specific end goal: acceptance to medical school–the golden ticket for the conveyer belt of medical education, the sole function of which is to ensure that you step off at the end a competent physician ready for clinical practice.
This conveyer belt follows a standard route for the next seven to 10 years of your life. It moves at such a tremendous pace to cover all of the knowledge future physicians must master that there is rarely a chance to step off the belt along the way, even for a moment.
However, during this time of economic transition, with the field of medicine dramatically transforming before us and technology changing the way we deliver health care, we need to redesign the conveyer belt with more on and off ramps. Though more and more medical students are taking time to acquire additional degrees such as an M.B.A. or M.P.H., or gaining additional experience by working abroad, physicians-in-training before us had to fight for this practice to be accepted in medical circles.
The results of the Cornell study reveal there is a concealed barrier that creative individuals may face as they attempt to gain acceptance for their novel ideas. Even though we all desire creativity and would agree that it is the engine for scientific discovery, few of us would be willing to accept the uncertainty that accompanies the creative process. All of us have had an innovative idea at some point that we pushed to the back of our minds, either because someone told us that it was improbable or because we told that to ourselves. Now imagine how different the world could be if instead we encouraged those around us and ourselves to give creativity and uncertainty a try for a change.
Dr. Danielle Salovich, immediate past president, is a recent graduate of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.